


but your tears make me choke

by spookysp_ace (summermoonsdawn)



Series: osaaka week 2020 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi Keiji is overworked, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miya Osamu is a Good Boyfriend, Not Canon Compliant, Stress, THE BEST, angst is not between OsaAka, just... university is hard...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26456728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summermoonsdawn/pseuds/spookysp_ace
Summary: osaaka week, day 2 || comfort ||Food had become a way for them to speak without speaking. Their very own morse code. When the world was crumbling, cracking like a teapot, what do you do?  When your unspoken language and shared dinners disappeared, didn’t work, what were you supposed to do?-Or, where comfort does not always come from food.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu
Series: osaaka week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922587
Comments: 3
Kudos: 82
Collections: Osaaka Week 2020





	but your tears make me choke

**Author's Note:**

> please listen to [hindenburg lover](youtube.com/watch?v=VhKWb-bR83s) by Anson Seabra before or during the read.
> 
> the lyrics don't exactly match, but the _sound_ is perfect for this fic.
> 
> if you've made it here, then please note the tags again. while the angst is not between Akaashi and Osamu, the angst stems from stress over university classes. if that is a trigger, please stop here. the detail is not abundant but it is the focus.
> 
> please enjoy.

_don’t buy me roses_

_just make me be_

_your flower_

–– Alexandra Vasiliu

  
  


☼

  
  


Someone once said the ocean allows your heart to bleed.

  
  


☼

  
  


Akaashi had lists. Notepads. Sticky notes. Journals. He had a white board with seven markers each of varying colors. He had special pens of particular weights–don’t touch the extra fine V5 and do not, under any circumstances, move the 0.7 gel pens–because they felt better gliding over the page, even if sometimes the ink smudged on side of his hand and would be left there the rest of the day, not even an afterthought.

His pens would caress the paper, purl with the ink in boxes and shapes of kanji. He’d grip his pens hard enough that under someone else’s strength, maybe they would break. 

Maybe he wanted them to break.

Sometimes, if his mind was wandering in a field of thoughts, the ink would strike the strokes of a face on the edges. Akaashi didn’t call them doodles. If he called them doodles, for whatever reason, it would suggest he wasn’t working. 

He was working. Feverishly. 

He was a flower, wilting.

There were words on his white board that were also written on sticky notes–he needed to see them, everywhere, or he’d forget. Without meaning to, he would forget. 

In a scratchy scrawl opposite to his floating words he had written several things on onew sticky note:

  * _pick up dinner_


  * modern-japanese literature essay (due tuesday!)


  * meeting with Wen-sensei, tuesday, 3pm


  * meeting with Kawabata-sensei, wednesday, 9am



The note trailed off onto another one. 

  * _dinner_



Akaashi, in all his habits, had a terrible one of pushing food off as a last minute action. When he was busy, as busy as he is now with his five fourth-year level literature courses, he would mumble _I’ll eat after I finish this._

Whatever _this_ was would, almost always, not be finished for hours.

In their shared apartment, Osamu would do what he could.

Onigiri placed on the edge of a desk at 2 a.m.

Bentos made the night before, only to sometimes be forgotten in the fridge.

No one could force Akaashi to slow down, to breathe, to look at the weight on his shoulders and how they were crushing him into the ground.

Food had become a way for them to speak without _speaking._ Their very own morse code. When the world was crumbling, cracking like a teapot, what do you do? When your unspoken language and shared dinners disappeared, didn’t work, what were you supposed to do?

Akaashi was a flower, and his petals were falling to the dirt.

  
  


☼

  
  


_“Ehh?”_ Bokuto had answered the phone after two rings. _“Is ‘Kaashi okay?”_

It was 8 p.m., the week of finals, and there was a flower with deep purple circles under his eyes asleep on the couch. Akaashi’s glasses were perched on his nose still, slipping down his face. His lips were parted in a baby oval, with the smallest of breaths escaping his mouth. A thick anthology sat on his chest, 0.7 gel pen tucked between the pages.

_“That bad, huh?”_ Bokuto responded after a few short sentences from Osamu.

_Akaashi hasn’t talked to any of his friends for more than five minutes in the past two weeks._

_He’s maybe slept ten hours in the past four days._

_He didn’t eat my onigiri._

Osamu sagged on the wall closest to the kitchen. He could just peek around and still have Akaashi in his line of sight.

_“I don’t know if he’s told you this, ‘cuz ‘Kaashi can be quiet about when he was a kid–”_ Bokuto continued, “– _he didn’t even tell me until his last year of high school but–”_

  
  


☼

  
  


Akaashi and his family had lived in Hayama until Akaashi was eleven years old. He was, for eleven years, a ten minute walk from Isshiki beach. His mother would take them almost every day to walk across the sand. If it was cold, then they’d walk the pier to feel the biting chill on their cheeks.

Then his younger sister was born. 

Akaashi’s mother decided they needed to be closer to family, and she’d snatched a job at a university near Tokyo. She would take Akaashi to the Tokyo ports but they didn’t go back to the beach.

  
  


☼

  
  


“Where are we going?” Akaashi asked the morning after Osamu’s phone call with Bokuto. He didn’t complain though about leaving the apartment. He didn’t say anything about the stacks of books he had on his desk, or his computer that was still left open. He hadn’t said a word about how it was 1 p.m. and he’d just slept for nearly half a day–or even wondered how he’d previously been on the couch but woken up in their bed.

He still looked tired. The purple bruises under his eyes wouldn’t go away until he’d had more rest than one lucky night without alarms. His hair was a mess–but the green in his eyes was bright, more clear than they’d been in weeks, and curious as they walked to the train station.

“It’s a surprise,” Osamu said.

After settling onto their train, Osamu moved his backpack and pulled out a bento box. “Just eat. It’s a good surprise. Promise.”

  
  


☼

  
  


Akaashi ate everything in the bento.

He said _thank you_ and pressed a rice tasting kiss on Osamu’s cheek.

He spent the other hour and a half train ride napping on Osamu’s shoulder.

Osamu, feeling more relaxed than he had in over two weeks, allowed his head to tilt on top of Akaashi’s own. He breathed in the dark curls–raindrop shampoo floating into his senses–and then sighed.

  
  


☼

  
  


“Thank you,” Akaashi said as they stood, toes against the shore, digging into the Isshiki beach sands like his hands gripped his extra fine pens. With desperation. 

“Thank you,” he lips whispered against Osamu’s cheek. 

Tears of clear quartz cracked down Akaashi’s face, but he said again, “Thank you.”

  
  


☼

Someone once said the ocean allows your heart to bleed.

And sometimes–

Sometimes flowers need a little water.

  
  


☼

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> scream at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/spacedaichi)???
> 
> okay, now it is midnight and still have reading for my class to do, but i hope y'all enjoyed! i was unsure if i was going to be able to do day 2, but now i'm REALLY unsure if i'm going to able to do day 3.
> 
> anyways!! kudos and comments always welcome. thank you again for reading <3


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